(0       H  B 

?Si3505 
W   D4 


^ 


o 


ESTIMATES    OF    POPULATION 


IN  THE 


AMERICAN   COLONIES 


BY 


FRANKLIN  BOWDITCH  DEXTER. 


ESTIMATES  OE  POPULATION 


AMERICAN    COLONIES 


[From  the  Report  of  the  Council  of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society, 

presented  at  the  annual  meeting  held  in  worcester, 

October  21,  1887.] 


By  franklin  BOWDITCH  DEXTER. 


^^^orce^ter,  Pa^'^.,  m.  ^.  g^. 

PRESS    OF    CHARLES    HAMILTON, 
No.   311   Main   Street. 

1887. 


•  •    •  •  J     • 

*  ••  •  •  •  • 

»  • • «  •    •• 


ESTIMATES  OF  POPULATION  IN  THE  AMERICAN 
COLONIES. 


[The  Annual  Report  of  the  Council  of  the  American  Antiquarian 
Society,  submitted  October  21,  1887,  comprises  the  customary  review  of 
the  progress  of  the  Society,  since  the  last  meeting,  with  notices  of 
deceased  members,  and  continues  as  follows  : — ] 

In  accordance  with  custom  the  member  of  the  Council-  to 
whom  is  entrusted  the  duty  of  formulating  their  Report  is 
permitted  to  present  therewith  a  discussion  of  some  subject 
of  general  historical  interest,  for  which  he  is  more  directly 
responsible.  The  present  writer  offers,  therefore,  some 
observations  on  the  Estimates  of  Population  in  the  Ameri- 
can Colonies. 

I  am  not  aware  that  any  attempt  has  been  made  to  dis- 
cuss in  a  connected  way  the  scattered  estimates  of  the  num- 
bers of  inhabitants  from  time  to  time  in  the  several  colonies 
which  afterwards  became  the  United  States  of  America. 
The  materials  at  command  are  so  meagre  as  to  discourage 
inquiry,  but  a  conviction  that  a  beginning  should  be  made 
in  the  arrangement  of  the  data  we  have,  and  a  hope  of 
opening  the  way  for  useful  deductions,  have  moved  me  to 
offer  this  study. 

Certain  elements  of  difficulty  are  inseparable  from  the 
attempt.  In  America,  under  the  colonial  regime,  there  was 
but  little  systematic  collection  by  authority  of  trustworthy 
population-statistics.  For  long  periods,  in  most  of  the 
colonies,  there  was  an  utter  dearth  of  even  the  pretence  of 
knowledge ;  Avhile  such  estimates  as  we  have,  there  is  rea- 
son to  suspect,  are  often  intentionally  misleading,  when 
officials,  on  the  one  hand  of  the  boastful,  or  on  the  other 
hand  of  the  timid  type,  thought  to  serve  some  interest  by 
exaggeration  or  by  understatement.     In  many  of  the  returns. 


moreover,  there  is  a  failure  to  specify  whether  certain  classes 
of  the  community,  as  negroes  and  Indians,  are  included; 
often,  however,  such  uncertainty  vanishes  by  an  inspection 
of  the  figures.  Other  elements  of  vagueness  and  of  per- 
plexity will  suggest  themselves,  as  we  consider  the  field  in 
detail. 

Taking  the  colonies  in  the  usual  geographical  order,  the 
first  is  the  Province  of  New  Hampshire,  in  which  there  are 
no  peculiarities  or  extraordinary  variations  to  be  noted,  but 
a  tolerably  uniform  though  slow  rate  of  increase. 

The  separate  history  of  the  district  is  merged  from  1641 
of  1679  in  that  of  Massachusetts  Bay;  and  for  the  earliest 
period,  that  prior  to  the  protectorate  of  Massachusetts,  our 
associate.  Col.  Albert  H.  Hoyt,  in  a  paper  contributed  to 
our  Proceedings,^  estimates  that  *'the  entire  population 
*  *  *  did  not  much  exceed,  if  it  equalled,  one  thousand 
souls."  The  figure  suggested  is,  I  think,  too  large,  in  com- 
parison with  the  earliest  oflScial  basis  of  calculation,  namely, 
the  209  qualified  voters  at  the  date  of  the  first  General 
Assembly  after  the  erection  of  New  Hampshire  into  a  Royal 
Province.^  True,  the  list  of  voters  in  1680  by  no  means 
embraced  the  whole  male  population  of  voting  age ;  but  so 
far  as  it  gives  any  clue,  it  implies  less  than  1,000  inhabit- 
ants in  1641,  and  less  than  the  4,000  and  the  6,000  which 
Mr.  Bancroft  assigns  to  these  towns  in  1675  and  1689, 
respectively.^ 

The  first  contemporaneous  figures  are  those  in  a  Report 
by  the  Lords  of  Trade  on  the  American  Plantations  in  1721, 
to  the  effect  that  the  number  of  people  on  Governor  Shute's 
arrival  in  1716  was  computed  at  9,000,  and  the  increase  up 
to  the  last  hearing  was  about  500.^     Between  this  testimony 


lApril,  1876,  91. 

2  Belknap's  Hist.,  ed.  Farmer,  i.,  91. 

3  Hist.  U.  S.,  i.,  383,  608;  all  references  to  Bancroft  are  to  the  last  revision, 
unless  otherwise  stated. 

4  Documents  relating  to  Colonial  Hist,  of  N.  Y.,  v.,  595,  and  Palfrey's  Hist, 
of  N.  E.,  iv.,  457.     Cf .  a  similar  estimate  in  Chalmers's  Hist,  of  Revolt. 


and  the  first  census  a  valuable  hint  comes  from  the  state- 
ment of  John  Farmer,  chief  of  New  Hampshire  antiquaries, 
that   the    ratable    inhabitants  in  1732  were    under  3,000,^ 

NOTK.    The  side-numerals  in  this  and  following  wood-cuts  indicate  100,000, 
200,000,  etc. 

141,885. 


oopoooooo 


^ 


implying  a  total  of  from  12  to  13,000.  Another  local 
authority  preserves  the  polling  list  in  1761,^  which  indi- 
cates about  38,000  inhabitants ;  while  the  first  attempt  at 
actual  enumeration  was  a  census,  six  years  later,  gathered 
from  the  returns  of  the  selectmen,  and  amounting  to  52,700 
souls, -^  which  points  to  a  somewhat  more  rapid  growth  than 
before. 

A  second  Provincial  census,  after  another  six  years* 
interval,  yielded  over  72,000,^  and  a  less  complete  return 
obtained  for  the  State  Convention  of  1775  assigned  a 
total  of  about  81,000,^  or  double  the  number  in  the 
Province  some  thirteen  years  before.  Natural  growth  and 
the  recuperation  after  the  war  brought  these  figures  up  to 


12,946;  in  Holmes's  Annals,  2d  ed.,  ii.,  539.  Dr.  Wm.  Douglass  (in  his  Sum- 
mary, ii.,  180)  estimates  24,000  in  1742,  which  is  credible;  notice  should  be 
taken  of  the  gain  of  territory  in  1740  from  Massachusetts.  British  officials  esti- 
mated the  white  inhabitants  in  1749  at  30,000  (Pitkin's  Statist.  View,  2d  ed., 
12).     Hurnaby's  Travels  (2d  ed.,  151)  stated  about  40,000  in  1759. 

29,146  (Rev.  Samuel  Langdon,in  Holmes's  Annals,  ii.,  540). 

3  Provincial  Papers  of  N.  H.,  vii.,  170.  Bancroft's  estimate  (ii.,  38)  of  50,000 
whites  in  1754  is  excessive,  and  still  more  so  Winsor's  (Narrative  and  Critical 
Hist,  of  Amer.,  V,  151),  taken  from  the  Board  of  Trade's  figures,  75,000  in 
1755,  quoted  by  Bancroft  in  early  editions  (iv.,  128-9) ,  but  discarded  by  him  later. 

4  72,092  (Provincial  Papers  of  N.  H.,  x.,  625-36). 

5  Provincial  Papers  of  N.  H.,  vii.,  780-81.  This  return  was  made  to  correct 
the  wild  estimate  of  Congress,  vvliich  was  in  one  form  102,000,  exclusive  of 
slaves,  or  as  otherwise  reported  (John  Adams's  Works,  vii.,  302)  150,000. 


95,000^  in  1786,  and  to  141,885  in  1790.  None  of  these 
estimates  include  the  Vermont  towns,  to  which  New  Hamp- 
shire so  long  hiid  claim,  and  which  by  1790  rivalled  her  own 
numbers  of  ten  years  before. 

In  the  case  of  Massachusetts  the  population-curve  can  be 
more  confidently  traced.  The  slow  and  painful  growth  of 
Plymouth  Colony  had  brought  together  "near  300"  per- 
sons^ in  1630,  when  Boston  v^as  founded ;  while  in  two 
years  after  that  date  the  plantation  at  the  Bay  had  expanded 
to  about  2,000.3 

An  early  basis  for  calculation  is  the  apportionment  of 
troops  for  the  New  England  Confederacy  in  1(J43,  when 
the  quota  of  Massachusetts  Bay  was  five  times  that  of 
Plymouth,  in  which  colony  there  were  then  627  males  of 
military  age.^  The  population  is  usually  computed  as  from 
four  and  a  half  to  five  and  a  half  times  the  number  of 
militia.  This  yields  as  a  probable  total  in  1643  for  Massa- 
chusetts (including  Plymouth,  but  not  the  New  Hampshire 
towns)  from  16,000  to  17,000  souls;  Dr.  Palfrey  prefers 
the  hiirher  figure,^  but  the  lower  is  the  safer  liniit.^ 

The  full  stream  of  immigration  w^hich  had  fed  hitherto 
the  Bay  Colony,  ceased  after  1640,  when  Massachusetts 
contained  probably  as  many  people  as  the  rest  of  British 
America ;  and  some  retardation  of  the  rate  of  increase, 
unequalled  in  the  early  stages  of  any  other  colony,  except 
Pennsylvania,  then  set  in.  For  sixty  years,  however,  we 
have  no  direct  estimates  of  any  value,  and  must  for  the 
interval  fall  back  on  such  computations  as  the  important 


195,755  (Provincial  Papers,  x.,  689). 

2  Patent  to  Bradford.    Cf .  Lowell  Inst.  Lectures  on  Early  Hist,  of  Mass.,  169. 

3  T.  Wiggin's  Letter  in  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Collections,  3d  series,  viii.,  322. 
4Palfrey'sHist.,ii.,  6. 

5ii.,  5. 

6 Intermediate  estimates  are:— for  1635,  Plymouth,  500  (Palfrey,  i.,  166),  and 
Massachusetts  Bay,  nearly  or  quite  5,000  (Rev.  Henry  M.  Dexter's  Koger 
Williams,  41) ;  for  1636,  3,000,  or  at  most,  4,000  ((i.  B.  Emerson,  in  Lowell 
Inst.  Lectures  on  Hist,  of  Mass.,  465) ;  for  1637,  Plymouth,  549,  and  Massachu- 
setts Bay,  7,912  (J.  B.  Felt,  in  Collections  of  Amer.  Statist.  Assoc,  i.,  139) ;  for 
1639,  the  Bay,  8,592  {do.). 


6 

series  prepared  by  our  lute  associate,  Dr.  Joseph  B.  Felt, 
in  1815,  for  the  American  Statistical  Association,^  largely 
on  the  basis  of  militia  rolls.  Judged  by  his  careful  figures, 
Dr,  Palfrey^  is  substantially  correct  in  assigning  30,000  to 
Massachusetts  (including  the  new  Province  of  Maine,  as 
well  as  New  Hampshire  and  Plymouth)  in  1665,  as  also 
Mr.  Bancroft-  in  assigning  37,000  to  the  same  territory  at 
the  outbreak  of  Philip's  war.^  Mr.  Bancroft's  next  esti- 
mate, at  the  Revolution  of  1689,"^  of  44,000  for  Massachu- 
setts, with  Plymouth  and  Maine,  is  an  over-cautious  deduc- 
tion from  the  roll  of  the  militia  f  on  the  other  hand.  Dr. 
Palfrey's  hesitating  suggestion^  of  60,000  as  the  total  on 
the  change  of  government  in  1692,  is  slightly  excessive. 

The  Board  of  Trade's  Report  in  1721^  gives  a  new  basis 
for  calculation,  computing  about  94,000  for  Massachusetts ; 
and  though  Dr.  Palfrey^  styles  this  a  "heedless  exaggera- 
tion," his  criticism  may  be  criticised  in  turn  as  too  sweep- 
ing.^ The  next  evidence  of  importances^  comes  from  the 
rate  list  of   1735,  which  registered  53,427  taxable  polls. 


1  Collections  of  the  Association,  i.,  pt.  2. 

2  Hist.,  iii.,  35.  Felt  estimates  Massachusetts  (includln;^  Plymouth,  Maine 
and  New  Hampshire)  at  28,777  in  1665.  Capt.  Edward  Johnson's  assumption 
of  near  80,000  in  New  England  in  1661  (Wonder  Working  Piovidence,  ed. 
Poole,  cxxiv-vi.),  though  approved  by  Doyle,  seems  to  me  quite  impossible. 

3i.,383. 

4The  extravagant  misrepresentations  of  Cartwright  in  1665  (30,000  militia), 
and  of  Randolph  in  1676  (150,000  souls),  are  sufficiently  exposed  in  Palfrey's 
Hist.,  iii.,  30.  Baylies  (Hist,  of  Plymouth  Colony,  iii.,  191)  says  that  in  1676 
one  estimate  was  for  Massachusetts  28,750  souls,  and  for  Plymouth  7,500. 

5i.,60S. 

6 Reported  by  Sir  Edmund  Andros  in  1690  as  8,413.    Cf.  Palfrey,  iv.,  136. 

7iv.,  136.  Winsor's  Hist,  of  America  (v.  92)  gives  60—100,000  as  the  allowable 
range  of  estimates  for  this  date.  Felt  (Amer.  Statist.  Assoc,  i.,  142)  computes 
62,724  for  1695.  Humphreys  (Hist.  Account  of  S.  P.  G.,  42)  writes  in  1701, 
"  in  Boston  and  Piscataway  Government  there  are  about  80,000  souls." 

8  Documents  relating  to  Col.  Hist,  of  N.  Y.,  v.,  597. 

9iv.,387. 

10  The  same  Report  of  the  Board  of  Trade  reckons  the  militia  in  1718  at  14,925 
men,  besides  300  officers  and  800  exempts,  16,025  in  all;  the  population,  then, 
might  well  be  over  85,000. 

11  An  anonymous  tract  of  1731,  quoted  in  Anderson's  Hist,  of  Commerce,  iii., 
172,  credits  Massachusetts  with  *'  at  least  120,000  white  inhabitants." 


that  is,  of  white  citizens  (both  male  and  female)  aged  six- 
teen years  and  upwards,  besides  a  total  of  2,600  blacks. ^^ 
The  accepted  ratio  of  such  polls  to  the  population  is  that  of 
I  to  4  ;  with  a  necessary,  allowance  for  evasions  of  the  poll, 
a  result  of  145,000  and  over  is  justified.  A  similar  but 
less  exact  report  for  1742^  gives  at  least  165,000  inhabit- 
ants, substantially  the  same  as  the  estimate  for  nine  years 
later,  furnished  by  Governor  Pownall,^  who  calls  attention 
to  "a  great  depopulation  by  small-pox  and  war,"  which 
had  intervened ;  to  which  causes  of  retardation  might  have 
been  added  the  loss  of  eight  thriving  towns  transferred  in 
this  interval  to  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut,  in  the 
straififhtenino-  of  boundaries.  With  these  serious  drawbacks 
it  is  likely  that  Mr.  Winsor's  estimate'*  of  200,000  for  1755 
is  nearer  the  truth  than  Mr.  Bancroft's^  of  207,000  whites 
and  4,000  or  5,000  negroes  in  1754. 

In  1764  we  reach  the  first  Provincial  Census,  the  returns 
of  which,  though  not  officially  preserved,  seem  to  have 
shown  a  total  of  270,000  and  upwards,^  and  so  mark  the 
era  of  most  vio^orous  «rrowth  before  the  Revolution.     From 


lAmer.  Statist.  Assoc,  i.,  142,  quoting  Hist,  of  Brit.  Dominions  in  N. 
America  (publislied  1773) ;  the  same  authorities  estimate  the  militia  in  1747  at 
30,000,  which  would  give  a  total  of  over  190,000,— probably  too  large. 

2  Douglass's  Summary,  ii.,  180. 

3  Memorial  to  Sovereigns  of  Europe  (1780),  58;  probably  he  derived  his 
figures  from  the  polling-list. 

4  Hist,  of  Amer.,  v.,  151,  from  the  Board  of  Trade's  Report,  in  Bancroft's  early 
editions,  iv.,  129. 

5  ii.,  389,  391.  The  British  official  estimate  in  1749  was  220,000  whites  (Pitlvin's 
Statist.  View,  2d  ed.,  12).  Pres.  Ezra  Stiles  supposed  234,000  in  1754  (Holmes's 
Annals,  ii.,  538).  Burnaby,  in  1759  (Travels,  2d  ed.,136),  learned  that  the 
inhabitants  of  Massachusetts  were  "  supposed  to  amount  to  200,000."  Gov. 
Pownall  (Memorial,  58),  arguing  probably  from  the  list  of  polls,  and  therefore 
underestimating,  gives  210,000  as  an  approximate  figure  for  1701. 

6  Felt  (Amer.  Statist.  Assoc,  i.,  157)  makes  the  total  254,253;  but  Dr.  J. 
Chickoring,  in  his  Statistical  View  of  the  Population  of  Mass.  (Boston,  1840), 
4-5,  proves  omissions  which  make  the  result  for  what  is  now  Massachusett* 
about  215,718,  to  which  adding  the  District  of  Maine,  we  get  209,711.  Dr.  J. 
Belknap  (Mass.  Hist.  Soc  Collections,  iv.,  198)  remarks  that  this  census,  being 
an  unpopular  measure,  was  not  accurately  taken;  so  that  Dr.  t^hickering's  total 
may  need  to  be  increased. 


8 

her  numbers,  no  less  than  her  spirit,  Massachusetts  was 
entitled  to  vie  with  Virginia,  the  only  larger  colony,  in 
leading  the  opposition  to  the  Stamp  Act. 

In  1776  came  another  census,  taken  ^75,327. 

by  suggestion  of  Congress,  and  aggre- 
gating near  340,000  ;^  the  Congressional 
levies  of  the  previous  year  had  assumed 
a  total  of  352,000,2  which  was  hardly 
true  until  the  war,  with  all  its  hin- 
drances to  growth,  was  nearing  its  close, 
say  by  1780.^ 

With  the  approach  of  peace  and  the 


new  influx  of  foreign  immigration  began,  as  in  almost  all 
of  these  newly  fledged  republics,  a  wonderful  recovery  so 
rapid  that  while  at  the  opening  of  the  year  1786  the  State 
authorities  reported  that  returns  lately  made  gave  a  popula- 
tion of  about  357,000,^  the  United  States  Census  in 
August,  1790,  adding  33  per  cent,  to  this,  reached  the 
astounding  figure  of  475,327.  With  all  allowance  for  the 
prosperity  which  flowed  in  like  a  torrent  at  this  favored 
time,  it  is  probable  that  the  State  returns  for  1785  were 
10,000  or  20,000  short  of  the  truth. 


1338,667,  in  Chickering's  Statist.  View,  9;  Felt  (Amer.  Statist.  Assoc,  i., 
131-2,  165)  does  not  give  tlie  complete  figures.  Trobably  the  returns  were 
still  below  the  actual  population. 

2 Or  in  1774,  400,000  (John  Adams's  Works,  vii.,  302). 

3  Felt  gives  (Amer.  Statist.  Assoc,  i.,  132,  170)  the  polling-lists  for  1778 
(76,854),  1781  (79,645),  and  1784  (91,546).  Hryant  and  Gay's  Popular  Hist,  of 
U.  S.  (iv.,  91)  estimates  350,000  in  1782. 

4  Amer.  Statist.  Assoc,  i.,  170.  Cf.  Belknap  in  Mass.  Hist.  Soc  Collections, 
v.,  198. 


9 

For  the  **  Colony  of  Rhode  Island  and  Providence  Plan- 
tations," the  conditions  of  our  problem  are  simpler  than  in 
other  parts  of  the  field.  The  aptness  which  this  govern- 
ment developed  for  the  taking  of  censuses, — no  less  than 
seven  being  ordered  within  seventy-five  years, — and  the 
compactness  of  the  territory  to  be  surveyed,  have  resulted 
in  furnishing  comparatively  abundant  information ;  while 
the  regularity  of  growth  is  also  specially  noticeable. 

For  the  seventeenth  century  we  have  only  the  inferences 
of  later  generations.  The  nearest  to  a  contemporary  esti- 
mate is  that  of  the  historian  Callender,  that  in  1658 — fifty 
years  to  be  sure  before  his  own  birth — there  were,  perhaps, 
fewer  than  200  families^  in  the  whole  jurisdiction.  If  this 
figure  deserves  credence,  it  is  likely  that  in  1663,  Avhen 
Charles  the  Second's  Charter  took  efiect,  the  white  inhabit- 
ants were  less  than  2,000.^  At  the  date  of  Philip's  War 
they  may  have  increased  to  3,000,^  and  at  the  Revolution 
of  1689  to  5,000.4 

We  come  next  to  a  Census  taken  in  1708,  in  conformity 
with  a  request  from  the  Board  of  Trade.  This  showed 
7,181  whites  and  negroes  in  the  nine  towns  of  the  Colony,^ 
and  was  followed  by  another  in  1730,  similarly  prompted, 
which  gave  a  total  of  16,950,  besides  985  Indians.^  The 
Colony  advanced  at  the  same  rate  of  growth^  until  1747, 
when  a  strip  of  territory  was  acquired  from  Massachusetts,® 


iHist.  Discourse,  149,  in  R.  I.  Hist.  Soc.  Collections,  iv. 

2  Bancroft  (i.,  363-4)  thinks  there  may  have  been  2,500;  Durfee  (Discourse 
before  R.  I.  Hist.  Soc,  10)  says,  not  over  3,000  or  4,000.  Palfrey  (Hist.,  iii.,  a-) 
conjectures  3,000  in  1G05. 

3  Bancroft  (i.,  383)  says,  perhaps  4,000. 
4 Bancroft  (i.,  60S)  says,  perhaps  6,000. 

5R.  I.  Col.  Records,  iv.,59;  Arnold's  Hist.,  ii.,  32. 

eCallender's  Hist.  Discourse,  93,  94;  Arnold's  Hist.,  ii.,  101.  Chalmers  (in 
Hist,  of  the  Revolt,  ii.,  7,)  cites  a  British  estimate  for  1715  of  9,000,  which  is  too 
low. 

7Pres.  John  Adams,  in  his  Twentj'^-Six  Letters  respecting  the  Revolution, 
written  in  1780,  says  (Works,  vii.,  303),  that  in  173S  there  were  15,000  inhabit- 
ants in  R.  I.    Douglass  (Summary,  ii.,  180)  estimates  30,000  in  1742. 

8  Containing  4,776  inhabitants  (Arnold's  Hist.,  ii.,  166). 
2 


10 

which  ticcounts  for  the  increase  to  over  34,000^  in  the  third 
census,  that  of  1748,  in  response  to  more  queries  from  the 
Board  of  Trade.  After  this  the  old  rate  of  o:rowth  ^nve 
sh'ghtly  over  40,000  in  1755,^  at  the  last  enumeration  by 
British  authority. 

68,825. 


On  the  eve  of  the  Revolution,  the  General  Assembl}^  of 
its  own  motion,  caused  a  most  elaborate  census  to  be  taken, 
in  June,  1774,  and  thus  recorded  almost  the  highest  mark 
of  prosperity  in  the  Colonial  stage, — not  quite  60,000.^ 
Lexington  and  Concord  and  Bunker  Hill  put  a  sudden  stop 
to  all  this  prosperity.  With  a  British  fleet  threatening 
thenceforth  her  exposed  territory,  and  half  the  population 
of  her  chief  town  scattered,  no  wonder  that  a  census  taken 
in  June,  1776,  on  recommendation  of  the  Continental  (Con- 
gress, showed  a  loss  to  Rhode  Island  of  5,000 — 8  per  cent, 
of  her  total — within  two  years. '^  Under  the  same  causes,  a 
census  in  1782  showed  a  further  reduction  of  5  per  cent.  ;^ 
but  with  the  close  of  hostilities  the  tide  turned,  and  the 
Federal  Convention  underestimated  the  truth  in  assuminij 
58,000^  as  the  probable  population  in  1787.  The  census 
of  1790  showed  the  figure  at  that  date  to  be  68,825, 
leaving  Rhode  Island,  as  she  had  been  for  the  preceding 
century,  the  most  densely  populated  of  any  of  the  original 
States.      Her  share  in   the   proceeds   of  the  slave-trades 


1  Arnold,  ii.,  173.  Cf .  Snow's  Report  on  the  Census  of  R.  I.  for  1865,  xxxii., 
xxxiv. 

2  40,414,  as  given  in  Potter's  Early  Hist,  of  Narragansett,  174;  40,680,  as 
given  in  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Collections,  2d  series,  vii.,113,  and  (in  more  detail)  in 
Pros.  Ezra  Stiles's  MSS.,  in  Yale  University  Library. 

3  59,707;  printed  in  detail,  with  the  names  of  all  heads  of  families,  in  1858. 

4  55,011 ;  in  Snow's  Report  on  Census  of  1865,  xxxii. 

5  About  52,400,  one  town  which  was  in  the  enemy's  hands  not  being  reported ; 
see  Arnold's  Hist.,  ii.,  481. 

6  Curtis's  Hist,  of  the  Constitution,  ii.,  168. 


11 

suggested  incidentally  by  the  fact  that  at  the  acme  of  her 
Colonial  prosperity  one  person  of  every  nine  within  her 
borders  was  either  a  negro  or  an  Indian, — four  or  five  times 
as  great  a  proportion,  that  is  to  say,  as  in  her  neighbors, 
and  unequalled  anywhere  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line. 

Passing  to  Connecticut,  we  find  there,  with  even  more 
regular  growth,  no  such  openness  in  regard  to  its  statistics. 
We  are  forced  continually  to  remember  that  Connecticut 
pursued  in  her  colonial  history  the  policy  of  hiding  her 
strength  in  quietness ;  so  far  as  miglit  not  be  inconsistent 
with  general  truthf illness,  she  preferred  to  make  no  exhibit 
of  her  actual  condition. 

The  beo:innino:s  here  were  feeble  as  elsewhere.  The 
historian  Trumbull's  conjecture^  still  commands  respect, 
that  at  the  close  of  the  first  year  of  settlement  the  original 
colony  had  increased  to  probably  800  persons,  and  Lord 
Say  and  Sele  in  1642  testifies^  to  the  understanding  in  Eng- 
land that  the  same  settlements  had  grown  by  that  time  to 
over  2,000.  At  the  establishment  of  the  New  England 
Confederacy  in  1643,  the  towns  along  the  Connecticut  were 
rated  as  if  containing  nearly  or  quite  3,000  souls,  and  the 
younger  Colony  of  New  Haven  as  if  numbering  nearly  or 
quite  2,500.3  From  this  date  to  the  union  of  the  two  gov- 
ernments, Connecticut  grew  somewhat  slowly,'^  and  New 
Haven  was  still  less  vigorous.  I  doubt  if  the  total  in 
1665,  when  the  union  was  finally  adjusted,  could  have  been 
over  9,000,^ — about  one-third  the  number  in  Massachusetts, 
and  this  proportion  held  good  through  that  century. 

In  1679  the  authorities  received  a  list  of  searching  queries 
from  the  Lords  of  Trade,  but  contented  themselves  as  to 


1  Hist,  of  Conn.,  i.,  68. 

2  Documents  relating  to  Col.  Hist,  of  N.  Y.,  i.,  128. 
sPalfrey'sHist.,  ii.,5,  6. 

4  Her  ratable  polls  in  1654  were  perhaps  825,  and  population  about  4,000— 
4,500  (Colony  Records,  1636-65,  265). 

5  Trumbull  says  (Hist,  of  Conn.,  i.,  287),  1,700  families,  and  8—9,000  inhabit- 
ants; Palfrey  says  (Hist.,  iii.,  35),  10,000  or  more. 


12 

statistics  of  population  with  reporting  the  figures  of  the 
militia-rolls,  Avhich  imply  in  the  current  decade  an  advance 
(almost  wholly  without  help  from  immigration)  from 
about  10,000  to  14,000. ^  For  the  next  thirty  years  the 
numbers  of  taxable  persons  recorded  annually  with  more 
or  less  fulness  in  the  assessments  of  rates  by  the  Colonial 
Assembly^  are  our  best  clues  to  the  population,  though 
these  lists  do  not  cover  unincorporated  neighborhoods,  and 
new  towns  were  apt  to  be  released  from  being  listed  for  a 
few  years  after  incorporation.  These  clues  justify  Mr. 
Bancroft's  supposition^  of  from  17,000  to  20,000  in  1689, 
but  require  us  to  double  almost  the  estimate  in  Trumbull's 
History^of  17,000  in  1713. 

In  1730  the  Colony  had  another  set  of  queries  to  answer, 
and  found  its  interest  as^ain  in  minimizin«:  the  account  of  its 
resources  :  the  inhabitants  were  computed  at  38,700,^  prob- 
ably about  two-thirds  the  actual  number.  The  discrepancy 
between  fact  and  representation  was  still  greater  in  1749, 
when  yet  another  list  of  troublesome  inquiries  from  London 
was  answered  with  a  guess  of  71,000^  for  the  population  of 
a  Colony,  which  less  than  seven  years  later,  under  a  per- 
emptory requirement  of  a  house-to-house  census,  proved  to 
have  over  130,000.' 

After  this  date  progress  was  slightly  checked  for  a  time 
by  the  French  war  and  by  removals  to  newly  conquered 


1  In  1671,  2,050  militia  (from  16  to  60  years  old) ;  in  1676,  2,303;  in  1677,  2,365 ; 
in  1678,  2,490;  in  1679,  2,507.  (Col.  Records,  1678-89,  295,  298.)  Other  esti- 
mates are  the  following :— Peters,  in  1670, 15,000,  and  in  1680,  20.000  (General 
Hist.  Conn.,  263) ;  Bancroft,  in  1675,  nearly  14,000  whites  (Eist.,  i.,  383) ;  Bay- 
lies, in  1676, 13,750  (Hist,  of  Plymouth  Colony,  iii.,  191). 

2  (^ol.  Records,  j9assm. 

3  i.,  608. 

4  i.,  451.  Chalmers's  Hist,  of  the  Revolt  (ii.,  7,)  cites  an  official  estimate  of 
47,500  in  1715,  which  is  much  too  large. 

5  Col.  Records,  vii.,  584. 

G  Col.  Records,  ix.,  596;  the  real  figure  was  about  double  what  it  was  at  the 
last  inquiry,  and  the  British  Government  adopted  100,000  whites  as  their  esti- 
mate (Pitkin's  Statist.  View,  2d  ed.,  12). 

7  130,612,  or  (according  to  another  count)  132,416.  Cf.  Col.  Records,  x.,  618, 
623. 


13 


territory  ;  but  a  census  in  1761  gave  a  total  of  145,590^ 
and  a  higher  rate  of  increase  brought  up  the  result  before 
the  Revohition  to  200,000,  exclusive  of  settlements  in  the 
Wyoming  Valley.^  Another  census  at  the  war's  close, 
showed  a  gain,  if  only  of  8,000,^  and  the  Federal  census 
of  1790  gave  237,946,  the  tide  of  Western  emigration 
preventing  as  rapid  a  growth  as  just  before  the  war. 
That  such  emigration  was  foregone  conclusion,  is  evident 
from  the  fact  that  Rhode  Island  was 
the  only  State  which  surpassed  Con- 
necticut, down  to  1790,  in  density  of 
population. 


237,946. 


The  Province  of  New  York  offers  a  marked  contrast  to 
Connecticut  in  its  attitude  towards  superior  authority,  sur- 
passing even  Rhode  Island  in  the  frequency  of  its  official 
enumerations.  When  wrested  from  the  Dutch,  in  1664, 
New  Nether  land  may  possibly  have  contained  7,000  souls,^ 
— not  quite  as  many  as  Connecticut,  not  one-quarter  as 
many  as  Massachusetts  ;  at  their  temporary  restoration,  nine 
years  later,  the  Dutch  estimated  their  own  contingent  in  the 
Colony  as  about  6,000  or  7,000,  to  which  must  be  added 
perhaps  half  as  many  English  and  other  whites.^ 


1  To  this  number  might  be  added  930  Indians  living  among  the  whites  (Col. 
Records,  xi.,  575,  G30). 

2  A  census  in  1774  gave  196,088,  without  Wyoming  (Col.  Records,  xiv. 
490-1) ;  the  estimate  of  Congress  in  1774  was  192,000,  and  another  in  1775  was 
262,000. 

3  208,870,  in  1782;  the  Federal  Convention  of  1787  estimated  Conn,  at  202,000. 
(Curtis's  Hist,  of  Const.,  ii.,  168.) 

4  J.  A.  Stevens,  in  Winsor's  Hist,  of  America  (iii.,  385),  says  not  over  7,000; 
Roberts  (Hist,  of  N.  Y.,  i.,  95)  thinks  8,000  a  liberal  estimate;  O'Callaghan 
(Hist,  of  New  Netherland,  ii.,  540)  cites  Dutch  local  authorities  for  full 
10,000;  a  Memorial  of  Holland  Traders  (Documents  relating  to  Col.  Hist,  of 
N.  Y.,  ii.,  512)  says  over  8,000. 

5  Documents  relating  to  Col.  Hist.,  ii.,  526,  and  Roberts's  N.  Y.,  107-9. 


14 

The  Proprietary  period  of  New  York  history  ended  with 
James  the  Second's  downfall  in  1689,  but  no  new  spirit  of 
growth  marked  the  change  to  a  Royal  Colony.  A  thorough 
census,  the  first  of  any  magnitude  in  all  the  British  Colo- 
nies, was  ordered  by  the  Governor,  Lord  Bellomont,  in 
1698,  and  yielded  18,067  ;'  but  the  preceding  decade  had 
been  one  of  alarms  and  of  war,  and  the  northern  part  of  the 
Province  had  suffered  from  resulting  emigrations,  so  that 
Mr.  Bancroft's  estimate^  of  not  less  than  20,000  at  the 
Revolution  of  '89  is  not  seriously  at  fault. 

Lord  Cornbury  took  a  second  census,  five  years  after, 
which  yielded  an  increase  of  nearly  15  per  cent.^  Then 
followed  Governor  Hunter's  in  1712,  which  met  with  so 
much  opposition,  from  superstitious  fear  of  its  breeding 
sickness,"^  that  only  partial  returns  were  obtained ;  these 
indicate  a  total  of  over  28,000.^  More  satisfactory  results 
were  gained  in  the  next  attempts,  and  the  censuses  for 
1723,  1731,  1737,  and  1746,  exhibit  a  regular  progression, 
yielding  in  round  numbers,  respectively,  40,000,  50,000, 
60,000  and  70,000.^  These  results  need  probably  to  be 
modified  by  Governor  Clinton's  admission  in  reporting  on 
the  returns  of  yet  another  census  in  1749,^  that  since  the 
officers  have  no  pay  for  this  service,  it  is  performed  reluc- 
tantly and  carelessly. 

Again,    in    1756,    in   answer   to   the    Board   of  Trade's 


1  Documeuts  relating  to  Col.  Hist.,  iv.,  420. 

2  i.,  608.  Brodheacl  (Hist,  of  N.  Y.,  ii.,  458)  puts  the  population  in  1686  at 
about  18,000. 

3  20,665,  as  given  in  Hough's  N.  Y.  Census  for  1855,  iv. ;  20,748,  in  Documents 
relating  to  Col.  Hist.,  v.,  339. 

4  Cf.  I  Chron.,  xxi. 

5  Documents  relating  to  Col.  Hist.,  v.,  339;  Hough's  Census  for  1855,  v. 
Chalmers,  in  Hist,  of  the  Revolt  (ii.,  7),  cites  a  government  estimate  for  1715 
of  31,000,  a  probable  figure;  Roberts  (N.  Y.,  i.,  232)  quotes  the  same  as  for 
1720,  not  so  appropriately. 

c  40,564  in  1723  (Documents  relating  to  Col.  Hist.,  v.,  702) ;  50,289  in  1731  (do., 
iv.,  694;  the  figures  in  do.,  v.,  929,  are  incorrect) ;  60,437  in  1737  (do.,  vi.,  133); 
61,589  in  1746,  without  Albany  County,  *'  not  possible  to  be  numbered  on  ac- 
count of  the  Enemy"  (do.,  vi.,  392). 

7  73,448.    See  Documents  relating  to  Col.  Hist.,  vi.,  509,  550. 


15 


Queries,  in  the  interest  of  war-levies,  the  population  was 
found  to  nuntber  96,790.^  Then,  after  a  longer  interval, 
during  which  the  rate  of  increase  rose  sensibly,  especially 
by  reason  of  the  conquest  of  Canada  and  the  extinction  of 
border  warfare,  came  Governor  Tryon's  census  in  1771, 
with  a  total  (excluding  the  Vermont  towns)  of  163,338.^ 
This  progress  continued  until  war  came 
on.  About  190,000  is  probably  a  fair 
estimate  for  1775,^  and  a  State  census 
for  178(3,  after  the  results  of  peace  were 
actually  in  hand,  gave  50,000  more,' 
not  perhaps  a  complete  return,  as  the 
Federal  census  four  years  later  gained 
on  this  figure  by  more  than  100,000,  or 


42  per  cent.^  In  this  unparalleled  prosperity  the  largest 
factor  was  the  development  of  the  new  and  hitherto  scarcely 
settled  Western  section. 

For  New  Jersey  our  data  are  meagre,  but  suflScient  to 
characterize  its  orrowth  as  slow  and  feeble.  The  first 
important  colonization  was  that  begun  in  1665  by  the 
English,  who  at  the  time  of  the  Dutch  seizure  of  New  York 
in  1673  numbered  pro])ably  3,000,^  and  by  the  expiration 
of  twenty-five  years  was  near  10,000."^     Meantime,  West 

1  83,242  whites,  and  13;548  blacks   (Hough's  Census  of  1855,  vi.).    Bancroft 
(ii.,  389,  391)  says  in  1754  about  85,000  whites  and  not  far  from  11.000  negroes. 
•2  Documentary  Hist,  of  N.  Y.,  i.,  697,  or  Hough's  Census  of  1^55,  vii. 

3  Prof.  A.  Joluiston  (School  Hist.,  93)  estimates  180,000;  the  estimate  of 
Congress  was  about  250,000. 

4  238,897  (Hough's  Census  of  1855,  viii.). 

5  .340,120. 

6  4B9  adult  males  (Whitehead's  E.  Jersey  under  the  Proprietors,  2d  ed.,  76). 
3,500  in  1676,  according  to  Dr.  Daniel  Coxe  (N".  J.  Archives,  ii.,  14).  About 
5,250  in  1682  (Smith's  Hist.,  161.    Cf.  Winsor's  Hist,  of  Amer.,  iii.,  436).  , 

7  Whitehead,  in  Winsor's  Hist.,  iii.,  446;  Bancroft,  i.,  608. 


16 

Jersey,  settled  in  1674,  was  much  less  sturdy,  its  first 
quarter  of  a  century  bringing  it  perhaps  to  4,000.^ 

The  great  crisis  in  the  history  of  these  sections,  dis- 
tracted hitherto  by  complicated  and  conflicting  claims, 
arrived  in  1702,  when  the  Crown  assumed  the  government 
of  perhaps  a  little  over  15,000  inhabitants.^  By  this  change 
the  conditions  of  life  were  made  more  secure  and  more 
inviting,  yet  growth  was  sluggish.  A  census  was  unpopu- 
lar, for  the  same  reasons  as  in  New  York,  and  not  until  1726 
was  any  regular  enumeration  effected,  the  result  at  that 
date  being  32,442.^  The  quj^rrelsomeness  and  general 
turbulence  of  the  communit}^  and  the  lack  of  appropriations 
for  payment  to  the  collectors,  limited  the  number  of  further 
censuses  under  Provincial  authority  to  two,  in  1737  and 
1745,  which  amounted,  speaking  roughly,  to  50,000  and 
60,000,  from  seven  to  eight  per  cent,  being  negroes.^ 

After  this  we  have  such  guesses  as  the  Royal  Governors 
could  make,  for  the  satisfaction  of  their  superiors.  In 
1754  and  again  in  1755,  Governor  Belcher  reported  about 
80,000  whites  and  from  1,500  to  1,800  blacks,^  the  latter 
item  an  evident  understatement ;  and  Governor  Franklin  in 
1774  conjectured  120,000,^  implying  a  stunted  growth,  to 
be  accounted  for  in  part  by  the  drain  of  emigration  to  the 
South  and  West,  since  the  Peace  of  Paris. 

A  more  rapid  advance  set  in  after  the  Revolution,  so  that 
the  General  Assembly  was  justified  in  assuming  in  1784 


1832  freeholders  in  1699  (N.  J.  Archives,  ii.,  305). 

2Gen.  McClellan,  in  Encycloya!dia  liritannica, 9th  ed.,  xvii.,398;  from  Hum- 
phreys's Hist.  Account  of  the  S.  P.  G.  (1701),  42.  Chalmers,  in  Hist,  of  the 
Revolt,  i.,  376,  gives  a  wild  guess  of  about  8,000  in  1702. 

8N.  J.  Archives,  v.,  164. 

447,369  in  1737  (N.  J.  Archives,  vi.,  244).  61,383,  including  4,606  slaves,  in 
1745  (do.,  242,  243). 

5N.  J.  Archives,  viii.,  pt.  2,  84,  186.  A  British  official  estimate  of  1749  was 
60,000  whites  (Pitkin's  Statist.  View,  2d  ed.,  12) ;  Bancroft  comi)Utes  (ii.,  389, 
391)  for  1754  about  73,000  whites  and  5,500  blacks;  Douglass  (Summary,  ii., 
286)  says  in  1755  about  50,000;  Burnaby's  Travels  (2d  ed.,  58)  say  70,000  in  1760. 
,  ^X.  J.  Archives,  x.,  446.  He  supposes  an  increase  of  over  20,000  since  1764. 
The  estimate  of  Congress  in  1774  was  130,000  (John  Adams's  Works,  vii.,  302). 


17 

a   population  of  about    150,000/    which  the  first  United 
States  census  carried  up  to  184,139. 

In  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware,  so  far  as  ^^'^^^• 

appears,  the  census  of  1790  was    the  first 
thorough    enumeration    attcnii)ted,    nid    ic- 
cordingly  we 
are  much  in  the 
dark  for  all  the 
colonial  period ;      %^%ZiZ^Z^^^„ 
a  special  embarrassment  arises,  moreover,  in  discussing  such 
data  as  we  have,  from  the  uncertainty  whether  in  any  given 
case,  Delaware,  a  quasi-independent  adjunct  of  the  Province, 
is  included. 

In  1681,  before  the  arrival  of  Penn's  settlers,  the  terri- 
tory contained  about  500  whites,^  mainly  Swedes  on  the 
banks  of  the  Delaware;  but  by  1685  the  number  had  risen 
to  7,200.^  The  popular  impression  is  correct,  that  coloniza- 
tion here  was  throughout  more  rapid  than  in  any  other  of 
the  original  governments  ;  and  Mr.  Bancroft,  in  his  review 
of  America  at  the  Revolution  of  1689,  sees  reason  to  con- 
clude that  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware  numbered  already 
perhaps  12,000. ^ 

The  contemporary  estimates,  however,  are  of  little  help. 
Col.  Heathcote,  of  the  New  York  government,  informed 
the  Propagation  Society  in  1700,  that  there  w^ere  in  Penn- 
sylvania at  least  20,000  souls. ^  Chalmers  cites^  a  Govern- 
ment estimate  for  1715  of  45,800;  but  the  value  of  such 
evidence  is  diminished  by  the  frank  admission  of  the  Board 
of  Trade's  careful  Report,  six  years  later,'''  that  the  accounts 


1 138,934  whites,  and  10,501  blacks. 

2  F.  D.  Stone,  in  Winsor's  Hist,  of  America,  iii.,  480. 

3  do.,  491. 
M.,608. 

5  Humphreys's  Hist.  Account  of  S.  P.  G.,  42.  Bryant  and  Gay's  Popular 
History  (iii.,  170)  says  over  20,000.  Grahame's  History  (2d  ed.,  i.,  551)  estimates 
35,000. 

6  Hist,  of  the  Revolt,  li.,  7. 

7  Documents  relating  to  Col.  Hist,  of  N.  Y.,  v.,  604. 

3 


18 

submitted  to  them  differ  wildly,  ranging  from  65,000  to 
half  that  figure. 

Governor  Gordon  in  1730^  gave  his  estimate  of  the  pop- 
ulation as  49,000,  and  this  is  supported  apparently  by  the 
number  of  taxables,^  though  I  suspect  that  these  did  not 
represent  the  same  per  cent,  of  the  whole  as  in  the  northern 
colonies.  Reasoning  likewise  from  the  list  of  taxable  per- 
sons in  1750,^  we  get  for  that  date  a  probable  total  of 
150,000,  and  in  1760,  220,000.'*  This  rapid  increase  had 
placed  Pennsylvania  before  the  middle  of  the  century  next 
in  numbers  to  Virginia  and  Massachusetts,  but  now  ensued 
a  slight  moderation  of  her  headlong  advance.  Dr.  Frank- 
lin, in  his  famous  examination  before  the  House  of  Com- 
mons in  1766,^  supposed  that  there  might  be  about  160,000 
whites  in  Pennsylvania  alone ;  but  he  did  not  profess  to 
speak  with  accuracy,  and  was  under  a  bias  which  led  him, 
perhaps  unconsciously,  into  cautious  understatement.  More 
credible  is  the  historian  Proud's  inference  in  1770^  from  the 
number  of  taxables,  that  there  were  250,000  people  in 
Pennsylvania,  and  from  20,000  to  30,000  in  Delaware. 


1  British  Museum,  Add.  MS.  30,372. 

2  Proud's  Hist,  of  Pa.  (ii.,  275)  says  not  over  10,000  in  1731  in  Pennsylvania 
alone;  but  T  should  estimate  the  population  of  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware  at 
about  (39,000.  For  1740,  Provost  C.  J.  Stille  (Pa.  Magazine  of  Hist.,  x.,  284) 
says  about  100,000. 

3About  21,000  in  Pennsylvania  alone  in  1751  (Proud's  Hist.,  ii.,  275) ;  not  over 
22,000  in  1752  (Hist.  Review  of  Government  of  Pa.,  196).  Pres.  Ezra  Stiles 
(Ms.  Itinerary,  1763)  quotes  Dr.  Franklin  as  telling  him  that  he  supposed  160,- 
000  in  Pennsylvania  in  1752;  but  Franklin's  Preface  to  Galloway's  Speech,  in 
1764  (Works,  ed.  Bigelow,  iii.,  334)  computes  20,000  houses  in  the  Province  in 
1752,  each  on  an  average  containing  five  persons.  The  British  Government  in 
1749  estimated  250,000  whites  in  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware  (Pitkin's  Statist. 
View,  2d  ed.,  12). 

^31,667  taxables  in  Pennsylvania  alone  (Col.  Records,  xi v.,  336).  Compare 
the  estimate,  by  one  of  the  Governor's  Council,  of  200,000  in  1757  {do.,  vii., 
448).  Bancroft's  figures  (ii.,  389,  391)  for  1754,  206,000,  seem  too  large;  as  also 
those  of  Gov.  Morris  in  1755,  over  300,000  (Col.  Rec,  vi.,  336),  and  of  Burnaby's 
Travels  (2d  ed.,  80)  in  1759,  4-500,000. 

5  Works,  ed.  Bigelow,  iii.,  412;  in  same  vol.  (334)  he  supposes  not  over 
110,000  in  1764. 

6 Hist,  of  Pa.,  ii.,  275,  276.    Cf.  Col.  Records,  xiv.,  336. 


19 


This  enormous  growth  kept  up  with  scarcely  any  relaxa- 
tion until  the  war,  Governor  Penn  reporting  in  January, 
1775,  over  300,000^  for  Pennsylvania  alone,  while  during 
the  war  the  estimate  of  Congress,  which  was  located  favor- 
ably for  an  accurate  judgment,  stood  at  the  same  figure.^ 
Even  more  startling  was  the  increase  after  493,467. 

the    war   ceased,^  when   for  the   first   time 
Massachusetts  was  outstripped,  and  the  esti- 
mate of  the  Federal    Convention   in   1787, 
remarkably  correct  in  comparison  with  most 
of  its   other   guesses,   was   397,000.^     The 
result  in  1790  was  second  only  to  Virginia 
(both  absolutely,  and  in  percentage  of  growth 
since    1775),    being    434,373    for   Penns}  1- 
vania  proper,  and 
59,094  for  Delaware. 
It  should  be  noted  in 
passing  that,  from 
about   the   middle    of 
the  century,  when  Bos- 
ton   was   left   behind,    i    i    | 
Philadelphia  was  by   far  the  most   populous  place  in  the 
Colonies. 

Maryland  presents  throughout  a  uniform  and  gradual 
development,  resembling  strikingly  that  of  Connecticut. 
She  began  with  Leonard  Calvert's  cargo  of  300  colonists  in 
1634,  and  enjoyed  such  accessions  that  in  1660  she  was 
reported  in  England  as  "  peopled  with  8,000  souls," ^  while 


1  300,000  whites  and  2,000  blacks  (Pa.  Archives,  iv.,  597).  Scharfs  Hist,  of 
Maryland  says  (ii.,  200)  341,000  in  1775,  excluding  slaves. 

2  Pa.  Archives,  viii.,  473  (for  1780) ;  the  estimate  for  Delaware  was  37,000. 
•Thetaxables  for  1779  were  45,683  (Brissot's  New  Travels,  326).  Bryant  and 
Gay's  Popular  Hist,  of  U.  S.  says  (iv.,  91,)  350,000  in  1782  in  Pennsylvania. 

3  66,925  taxables  in  17S6  (Brissot,  326). 

4  360,000  in  Pennsylvania,  and  37,000  in  Delaware  (Curtis's  Hist,  of  the  Con- 
stitution, ii.,  168). 

5  Thomas  Fuller's  notice  of  Sir  George  Calvert,  in  his  "Worthies  (written 
1660, 1661),  lii.,  418. 


20 

ill  1665^  rumor  had  doubled  even  this  allotment.  In  1667 
Ave  have  a  Maryltmd  clergyman's  letter,  written  however 
with  a  purpose  which  would  be  helped  by  a  generous  esti- 
mate, which  claims  at  least  20,000  souls^  for  the  province. 

These  figures  are  all  conjectural ;  but  a  series  of  more 
authority  begins  in  1701,  with  the  Governor's  report  of 
32,000  in  round  numbers  for  that  year.^  Computations 
conformable  with  this  for  other  years  follow,  *  with  the  first 
detailed  census  in  1712,  showing  just  over  46,000,^  of 
whom  the  neo^roes  were  less  than  one-fifth. 

According  to  the  Board  of  Trade's  Report  in  1721, 
already  quoted  in  several  cases,  the  population  of  Mary- 
land, two  years  before,  was  55,000  whites  and  25,000 
blacks  ;^  but  some  error  lies  in  these  figures,  which  has 
caused  other  exaggerations.  Especially  to  be  questioned  is 
the  implication  that  the  blacks  were  nearly  one-third  of  the 
whole.  The  truth  may  have  been  that  the  whites  num- 
bered 50,000,  and  the  blacks  10,000  or  12,000. 

For  the  next  thirty  years  we  have  no  full  evidence,"^  but 
the  result  is  shown  in  Governor  Ogle's  report  for  1748^  of 

1  Oklmixon's  Brit.  Empire  in  America,  i.,  191.  Bancroft  (i.,  170)  adopts 
Fuller's  estimate  as  more  probable.  It  is  not  likely  that  there  were  11,000  in 
1665.    Ogilby's  America  (185)  in  1671  estimates  15,000  to  20,000  whites. 

2  Kev.  J.  Yeo,  in  Anderson's  Hist,  of  the  Colonial  Church,  2d  ed.,  ii.,  395. 
Hildreth's  Hist,  (i.,  567)  says  perhaps  16,000  in  1670. 

3  32,258,  according  to  British  Museum,  Add.  MS.  30,372.  McMahon  (Hist,  of 
Md.,  i.,  273)  and  Bancroft  (i.,  008)  estimate  25,000  in  1689;  J.  Esteu  Cooke 
(Va.,  308)  says  35,000  in  1700;  Humphreys  (Hist.  Account  of  S.  P.  G.,  1701) 
says  over  25,000. 

4  For  1704,  35,012,  and  for  1710,  42,741  (Documents  relating  to  Col.  Hist,  of 
N.  Y.,  v.,  605).  Oklmixon's  Brit.  Empire  in  A^merica,  1708  (i.,  204),  says 
30,000,  and  Scharf  s  Hist,  of  Md.  (i.,  370)  says  over  40,000  for  same  year.  Ban- 
croft (ii.,  23)  follows  Oldmixon. 

546,073,  of  whom  8,330  were  negroes  (Scharf's  Hist.,  i.,  377).  A  Govern- 
ment estimate  in  1715  gives  50,200  (Chalmers's  Hist,  of  the  Revolt,  ii.,  7). 

6  Documents  relating  to  Col.  Hist,  of  N.  Y.,  v.,  605. 

7  There  is  a  Government  estimate  of  96,000  in  1732.  The  taxables  (i.  e.,  all 
males  over  sixteen,  and  all  female  negroes)  were  31,470  in  1733  (McMahon's 
Hist.,  i.,  313). 

8  Scharf's  Hist.,  i.,  437,  or  McMahon,  i.,  313 :  about  94,000  whites  and  36,000 
blacks.  An  Knglish  official  estimate  in  1749  was  85,000  whites  (Pitkin's  Statist. 
View,  2d  ed.,  12).  Winsor's  Hist,  of  America  (v.,  151)  gives  100,000  as  the 
total  for  1749. 


21 


130,000  inhabitants.  A  census  in  1755,  for  the  informa- 
tion of  the  Board  of  Trade,  yielded  about  154,000, — the 
negroes  and  raulattoes  being  about  thirty  per  cent,  of  the 
whole  ;^  and  another  return  of  the  Governor  and  Council  in 
1761  reported  164,000,^  of  whom  some  50,000  were  blacks. 
As  the  understood  object  of  these  returns  was  for  use  in 
laying  military  requisitions,  it  is  likely  that  evasions  were 
frequent. 

The  intervening  period,  until  the  Revolu-  ^^^"^^4 

tion,  is  not  known  in  detail,  but  the  rate  of  3 

growth  seems  to  have  been  slightly  below 
that  of  other  Colonies  in  that  era  of  gcnei  il 
expansion.     At  the  outbreak  of  the  ^^  11  the 


CT2  O 


numbers  were  probably  near  250,000,*^  and  at  its  close  four 
thousand  more.'*  From  this  time  to  the  census  of  1790, 
with  its  total  of  320,000,^  the  increase  was  a  moderate  one, 
though  owing  to  limitations  of  territory  the  resulting  den- 
sity of  population  was  unequalled  outside  of  New  England  ; 
and  this  helps  to  account  for  the  decided  stand  of  Maryland 


1 107,208  whites,  42,764  negroes,  3,592  miilattoes  (Gentleman's  Magazine, 
xxxiv.,  261).  Another  account  (McMahon,  i.,  313,  and  Scharf,  ii.,  14)  gives 
107,963  whites  and  46,225  blacks.  Bancroft  says  (ii.,  389,  391)  104,000  whites  and 
44,000  blacks  in  1754. 

2  114,332  whites,  49,675  blacks  (McMahon,  i.,  313).  Eev.  Ethan  Allen  (Am. 
Qiiarterl)-  Church  Review,  xviii.,  39)  supposes  over  200,000  in  1758.  Burnaby 
conjectured  in  1759  (Travels,  2d  ed.,  67)  about  90,000  whites  and  32,000  slaves. 

3  Lodge  (Short  Hist,  of  Engl.  Colonies)  adopts  this  figure.  J.  F.  D.  Smyth 
was  told  (Tour  in  U.  S.,  ii.,  187)  that  the  numbers  were  275,000.  W.  T.  Brant- 
ley estimates  them  (Encyclopa3dia  Britannica,  9th  ed.,  xv.,  603)  at  200,000  in 
1775.  A  Congressional  estimate  in  1774  was  320,000  (J.  Adams's  Works,  vii., 302). 

4  Encycl.  Britannica,  9Lh  ed.,  xv.,  603. 

5  319,728,  of  which  103,036  were  slaves.  The  Federal  Convention  in  1787 
estimated  250,000,  of  which  80,000  were  slaves. 


22 

in  refusing  to  adopt  the  Articles  of  Confederation  until  the 
rights  of  the  general  government  to  the  undeveloped  West 
were  secured. 

Virginia,  the  leader  of  the  Colonies  in  time,  and  soon  in 
numbers  also,  began  as  feebly  as  any.  After  ten  years  of 
existence  (in  1616)  her  roll  of  inhabitants  was  only  351,^ 
but  immigration  had  swelled  this  list  to  2,400^  before  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers  landed  at  Plymouth.  In  the  midst  of  this 
prosperity  came  the  Indian  massacre  of  1622,  which  deci- 
mated the  colony  at  once,^  and  caused  siich  alarm  and  flight 
as  reduced  it  a  few  months  later  at  least  one-half.^  These 
misfortunes  expedited  a  change  of  administration,  so  that 
Virginia  became  a  Royal  Colony  in  1624,  and  the  first 
account  of  stock  taken,  early  in  1628,  showed  nearly  3,000 
persons.^  It  took  seven  years  for  these  to  increase  to 
5,000,^  and  five  years  more  to  bring  them  up  to  7,500.''' 
Then  came  a  speedier  growth,  so  that  the  last  figure  was 
doubled  in  eight  years, ^  and  this  doubled  again  in  eleven 
more,  or  by  1659.^  Meantime,  one  consequence  of  the 
Revolution  in  England  had  been  an  increased  immigration 


1  C.  Campbell's  Hist,  of  Va.,  117,  and  R.  A.  Brock,  in  Winsor's  Hist,  of 
Amer.,  iii.,  141.    Cf.  Jefferson's  Notes  (Works,  viii.,  329). 

2  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Colonial  Series,  1574—1660,  22. 

3  350-375  victims,  out  of  a  population  estimated  from  2,200  to  over  4,000.  Pur- 
chas's  Pilgrims  (iv.,  1792)  says  1,800  survived.  Bancroft  (i.,128)  says  the  immi- 
grants had  exceeded  4,000. 

4  Bancroft  (i.,  128)  says  only  2,500  remained  one  year  after  the  massacre.  A 
list  in  the  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Colonial  Series,  1574— 1660,  57  (cf.  43) , 
seems  to  show  only  1,275  in  the  winter  of  1623-4,  and  370  killed  in  the  massacre. 

5  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Colonial,  1574—1660,  89.  Gov.  Harvey  (do.,  117) 
estimated  the  inhabitants  in  May,  1630,  at  over  2,500. 

6  5,119  in  Census,  early  in  1635  (Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Colonial,  1574-1660, 
201). 

7  7,647  in  1640  is  the  estimate  of  the  editors  of  the  Aspinwall  Papers,  in  Mass. 
Hist.  Society's  Collections,  4th  series,  ix.,  79.  Holmes's  Annals  (i.,  315)  sup- 
poses about  20,000  in  1642. 

8  A  Perfect  Description  of  Va.,  1649  (Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  2d  ser.,  ix.,  105, 
or  Force's  Tracts,  ii.),  says  about  15,000  English  and  300  negroes.  Bancroft's 
statement  (i.,  143),  20,000  at  Christmas,  1648,  seems  too  large. 

9  30,000  (wrongly  printed  80,000)  in  ]659  (Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Colonial, 
1661-68,  350).  The  same,  for  1660,  in  Chalmers's  Polit.  Annals,  125,  and  Ban- 
croft, i.,  152. 


23 

to  the  loyal  Dominion  of  Virginia,  which  thus  gained  the 
leadership  in  numbers,  before  held  by  Massachusetts,  but 
not  again  to  be  transferred,  until  New  York  claimed  it  in 
1820. 

In  the  next  eleven  years,  the  epoch  of  the  Restoration, 
with  its  refluent  tide  of  immigration,  the  rise  was  only  from 
30,000  to  40,000,1  and  at  the  crisis  of  the  Revolution  of 
1689  this  mother  of  colonies  fell  still  a  little  short  of  60,000.2 
Fourteen  years  were  needed  to  raise  the  figure  to  70,000,^ 
and  another  fourteen  to  make  100,000.^ 

Between  this  date  and  the  Old  French  War  it  is  clear 
that  the  rate  of  growth  was  much  accelerated,  though  we 
have  few  details.  In  1755  Governor  Dinwiddle,^  on  con- 
fessedly imperfect  data,  believed  the  total  to  be  230,000 ; 
but  within  a  year  he  gives  us  the  number  of  tithables,^ 
from  which  might  be  inferred  a  total  of  almost  300,000, — 
the  blacks  being  not  far  from  40  per  cent,  of  the  whole, 
their  usual  proportion  through  the  century. 

The  growth  between  the  French  War  and  the  Revolution 
was  so  marvelous  as  to  appear  incredible.  In  1772  the 
tithables''  imply  a  population  of  475,000, — more  than  one- 
fifth  of  the  sum  total  in  the  country.  Probably  Governor 
Pownall's    estimate   in    1774,^   300,000    whites,    was   not 


iQov.  Berkeley  in  1671  says  above  40,000  (Chalmers's  Polit.  Annals,  327). 
-Bancroft  (i.,  608)  estimates,  50,000  or  more.    The  militia  in  1690  were  6,570 
(Documents  relating  to  Col.  Hist,  of  N.  Y.,  v.,  607). 

3  0klmixon's  Brit.  Empire  in  Amer.,  i.,  289.  58,000  in  1699  is  the  estimate  of 
an  official  Report,  in  Brit.  Museum,  Add.  MS.  30,372.  Humphreys's  Hist. 
Account  of  S.  P.  G.  computes  in  1700-01  above  40,000  [whites?].  The  militia 
in  1703  were  10,556  (Documents  relating  to  Col.  Hist,  of  N.  Y.,  v.,  607). 

4  Chalmers's  Hist,  of  the  Revolt  (ii.,  7)  gives  an  estimate  of  95,000  for  1715. 
The  taxables  (i.  e.,  all  males  over  16,  and  all  black  females  over  16)  in  1715 
were  31,658  (Gov.  Spotswood's  Letters,  ii.,  140).  The  militia  in  1716  were 
15,000  (fZo.,  211). 

5  Dinwiddle  Papers,  i.,  387.  Bancroft  (ii.,  390,  391)  put  the  whites  in  1754  at 
168,000,  and  the  blacks  at  not  less  than  116,000. 

0  43,329  whites,  and  60,078  blacks  (Dinwiddle  Papers,  ii.,  353,  474,  532). 
Neill's  English  Colonization  in  America,  67,  reports  the  population  in  1757  as 
44,214  whites,  and  58,292  blacks ;  but  these  are  the  tithables. 

U53,000  (Jefterson's  Notes,  in  Works,  viii.,  329). 

8  John  Adams's  Works,  viii.,  329. 


24 

essentially    wrong,  which  would  imply  m,m.^ 

at  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution  about  | 

550,000  in  all,^ — Massachusetts,  the 
next    largest    government,    having   less  ^ 

than  two-thirds  of  this  number.  In 
1782  an  incomplete  census  was  made, 
the  result  of  which,  conjecturally  modi- 
fied, gives  567,000,^  and  the  census  of 
1790  mounts  up  for  Virginia  proper, 
with  the  newly  organized  district  of 
Kentucky,  to  a  total  of  over  820,000,^  s 

in   which   the   blacks   still   held  nearly  ^ 

their  old   ratio  of  40   per  cent.     It  is  ^ 

noticeable  that  although  elsewhere  much 
more  in  excess  of  the  whites,  in  no  other 
colony  did  the  colored  element  increase 
in  that  century  with  anything  like  the 
rapidity  shown  here. 


i 

t 


In  North  Carolina,  most  backward  in  many  respects  of 
the  original  colonies,  there  was  no  enumeration  of  the 
inhabitants  before  1790.  We  grope  our  way,  therefore,  in 
much  uncertainty. 

When  a  charter  was  secured  by  Clarendon  and  his  asso- 
ciates in  1663,  it  is  supposed  that  there  may  have  been  300 

iThe  extravagant  estimate  of  Congress  in  1774  was  640,000  (J.  Adams's 
Works,  vii.,  302) ;  J.  F.  D.  Smyth,  in  his  Tour  in  U.  S.  (!.,  72),  suggests  about 
500,000  as  more  correct,  but  supposes  that  of  these  near  two-thirds  were  blacks. 

2  Jettcrson's  Notes,  in  Works,  viii.,  332,  333. 

3  Virginia,  747,610,  and  Kentucky,  73,077. 


25 

families^  in  the  Albemarle  region,  later  known  as  North 
Carolina.  Secretary  Miller  on  his  arrival  in  1677  reported 
the  tithables  in  this  district  as  1,400,^  from  which  Dr. 
Hawks  infers^  from  2,500  to  3,000  people  ;  adding  to  these 
the  colonists  at  Cape  Fear,'*  Mr.  Bancroft^  estimates  the 
whole  as  hardly  4,000.  Rebellion,  anarchy,  and  the 
removal  of  the  Cape  Fear  settlers,  reduced  the  tithables  by 
1694  to  787,6  implying  a  total  of  under  2,000. 

The  next  highest  point  must  have  been  on  the  eve  of  the 
Indian  outbreak  in  1711,^  and  after  the  setback  which  this 
caused,  we  get  a  glimpse  of  the  new  rate  of  progress  in  the 
fact  of  not  over  2,000  tithables,  or  at  the  utmost  a  popula- 
tion of  10,000  in  1717.^  From  this  date,  and  especially 
from  the  transfer  of  government  to  the  Crown,  the  numbers 
multiplied  much  more  rapidly.  A  comparison  of  Governor 
Burrino^ton's  assertion  that  in  1732^  the  whites  were  full 
30,000  and  the  negroes  about  6,000,  with  the  militia  roU,^" 
more  than  justifies  Mr.  Bancroft's  conjecture^^  of  90,000  in 
1754.  Ten  years  later  we  have  about  135,000  as  the 
estimate  of  Governor  Dobbs/~  certainly  not  an  excessive 
one ;  but  details  of  the  later  strides  towards  repletion 
are  wanting.  In  1774  the  estimate  of  Congress  was 
300,000  ;^3  but  this,  like  all  the  estimates  of  that  session,  was 


1  Rivers,  in  Winsor's  Hist,  of  Amer.,  v.,  305. 

2  Chalmers's  Polit.  Annals,  533. 
SHist.  of  N.  C.,ii.,4(J9. 

4  800  in  1G66  (Hawks,  ii.,  453). 

5i.,425. 

6  Rivers,  in  Winsor's  Hist.,  v.,  305. 

7 Hawks  thinks  (Hist.,  ii.,  89)  there  were  then  less  than  7,000;  judging  from 
the  official  estimate,  in  1715,  of  7,500  whites  and  3,750  blacks.  Humphreys's 
Hist.  Account  of  S.  P.  G.  says  over  5,000  whites  in  1701. 

8  Williamson's  Hist,  of  N.  C,  i.,  207,  or  Hawks,  ii.,  89.  Col.  Saunders  esti- 
mates 9,000,  in  Col.  Records,  ii.,  xvii. 

'•'  Saunders,  Col.  Records,  ii.,  xvii.  Martin's  estimate  (Hist,  of  N.  C,  i.,  302, 
303)  of  not  over  10,000  in  1729,  adopted  by  Hawks  (ii.,  103),  is  absurdly  low. 

w  15,400  in  1753  (Rivers,  in  Winsor's  Hist.,  v.,  304). 

11  70,000  whites  and  20,000  blacks  (ii.,  390, 391).  The  British  government  esti- 
mated in  1749  45,000  whites  (Pitkin's  Statist.  View,  2d  ed.,  12). 

12 Rivers,  in  Winsor's  Hist.,  v.,  305. 

13  John  Adams's  Works,  vii.,  302. 
4 


!9,442. 

i 


26 

regarded  subsequently  as  too  liberal,  and  probably  260,000^ 
Avas  nearer  the  truth.  At  any  rate,  there  was  surprising  pro- 
gress during  the  decade  preceding  the  Revolution,  in  which 
time  none  of  the  larger  colonies  increased  as  rapidly  as 
this  ;  but  numbers  do  not  necessarily  carry  weight,  and 
though  at  the  Revolution  fourth  in  population  among  all  the 
sisterhood,  North  Carolina  was  by  no  means  fourth  in 
importance. 

The  years  of  the   war  were   believed  to  429,442. 

be  eminently  disastrous  to  her  growth,^  and 
the  Federal  Convention's  estimate  in  1787 
was  224,000,^ — in  comparison  with  its  other 
guesses,  the  most  grossly  deficient  of  them 
all,  less  than  two-thirds  what  it  should  have 
been,    as   shown  by   the    census   of    1790, 
which  amounted  to  393,751,  besides  35,691 
classed   as   inhabitants    of  the    <*Territoi^ 
south-west  of 
the  Ohio,  hither- 
to in  North  Caro- 
lina,   and    after-  ^ 
wards  the    State  'o'''*'^^'~*~o"""'"f'*"""^^  o-    o     .      .     _     .      _.    .. 
of  Tennessee. 

The  permanent  development  of  South  Carolina  dates 
from  1670,  and  at  the  first  important  epoch,  the  founding 
of  Charleston  in  1680,  the  district  contained  from  1,000  to 
1,200  souls, "*  while  the  impulse  contributed  by  the  new 
capital  more  than  doubled^  the  number  in  the  next  two 
years.  Some  basis  for  a  judgment  is  furnished  by  a  Re- 
port of  the  notorious  Edward  Randolph,  as  agent  for  the 
Board  of  Trade,  who  professed  to  find  in  1699  near  1,500 


1  Tucker's  Hist,  of  U.  S.,  i.,  96,  and  Johnston's  School  Hist.,  93.  Wanting 
little  of  300,000  in  1776,  says  W.  C.  Kerr,  in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  9th  ed., 
xvii,,  562. 

2  Cf.  J.  F.  D.  Smyth's  Tour  in  U.  S.,  i.,  235. 
3Curtis's  Hist,  of  the  Constitution,  ii.,  168. 

4  T.  Ash,  in  Carroll's  Hist.  Collections,  ii.,  82. 
6  Ibid. 


27 

whites  of  military  age,  and  four  times  as  many  negroes.^ 
This  is  strikingly  inconsistent  with  a  report  by  the  Gov- 
ernor and  Council  in  1708,  placing  the  whites  at  about 
4,000,  and  the  blacks  at  5,500.^  Probably,  as  the  interests 
of  the  two  parties  were  directly  opposed,  the  agent's  repre- 
sentations need  to  be  scaled  down,  and  those  of  the  Colony 
officials  to  be  magnilied. 

It  is  clear  that  already  the  negroes  with  the  Indians  were 
outnumbering  the  whites,  and  henceforth  the  negroes  multi- 
ply with  startling  celerity. 

The  war  which  broke  out  in  1715  scattered  the  Indian 
tribes  and  checked  slightly  the  process  of  growth  in  the 
Province,  which  then  numbered  over  16,000  ;3  but  by  1720 
the  Governor  could  report  20,000."^ 

With  the  revolt  from  proprietary  rule  in  1719  began  a 
distinctly  more  prosperous  era,  as  is  clear  from  Governor 
Glenn's  rather  generous  estimate  of  32,000^  population,  five 
years  later.  This  occurs  in  a  Description  of  the  Province, 
written  in  1749,  which  supplies  also  our  next  data,  namely, 
whites  nearly  25,000,  and  negroes  at  least  39,000,^ — con- 
siderably below  the  total  in  North  Carolina  for  the  same 
year. 

1  Rivers's  Sketch  of  Hist,  of  S.  C,  443.  Hewatt's  Hist.  Account  (Carroll's 
Hist.  Collections,  i.,  132)  says  5-6,000  whites,  about  1,700.  Humphreys's  Hist. 
Account  of  S.  P.  G.  (25),  in  1701,  says  above  7,000  whites. 

2  9,580  in  all  (Rivers's  Sketch,  232).  Oldmixon's  Brit.  Empire  in  America, 
1708,  quoted  in  Carroll's  Hist.  Coll.,  ii.,  460,  says  12,000. 

3  In  1714, 10,000  slaves  (Rivers's  Sketch,  251)  and  about  6,300  whites  (do.,  Sup- 
plement, 92).  A  British  estimate  for  1715  was  6,250  whites  and  10,500  blacks 
(Chalmers's  Hist,  of  the  Revolt,  ii.,  7). 

4  In  Rivers's  Sketch,  Supplement,  19,  20,  92, 101,  are  two  sets  of  returns  for 
the  whites  in  1720,— one  6,400,  and  one  about  9,000;  the  slaves  are  11,828. 

5  Whites,  about  14,000  (Carroll's  Hist.  Coll.,  ii.,  261).  Bryant  and  Gay's 
Popular  Hist,  (iii.,  107)  estimates  6-7,000  whites  and  about  22,000  slaves  in  1730. 
Purry's  Description,  in  1731  (Carroll's  Hist.  Coll.,  ii.,  129),  says  over  40,000 
negroes.  Von  Reek's  Journal,  1734  (Force's  Tracts,  iv.,  9),  computes  30,000 
negroes  and  four  negroes  to  one  white.  These  slave  estimates  all  seem  too  high. 

6  Carroll's  Hist.  Coll.,  ii.,  218;  the  whites  are  estimated  from  the  militia 
(about  5,000),  and  the  negroes  are  those  reported  for  taxation,  probably  not  a 
full  return.  The  British  Government  estimated,  the  same  year,  30,000  whites 
(Pitkin's  Statist.  View,  2d  ed.,  12).  In  1741,  the  Impartial  Enquiry  concerning 
Georgia  (Ga.  Hist.  Soc.  Collections,  i.,  167)  says  not  over  5,000  whites  and  at 


28 

The  next  complete  figures  are  those  of  Dr.  249,073. 

George   Milligan,    in    1763,    from  30,000   to  J 

40,000  whites  and  about  70,000  slaves.^     Ten 
years  later  the  militia  were  about  13,000  (im 
plying  five  times    as    many  whites)  and    th 
negroes    about  ^ 

110,000,2  which 
makes  the  hiofh- 
est  point  reached 
before  the  Revolution,  still  under  200,000.  One  result  of 
the  war  was  that,  whereas  for  generations  previous  the 
blacks  had  outnumbered  the  whites  so  largely,  the  whole- 
sale exodus  of  negroes  under  the  auspices  of  the  British 
reversed  this  proportion  of  the  races  in  the  census  of  1790, 
which  gave  140,178  whites  and  108,895  blacks.  North 
Carolina  and  Virginia  had  suffered  in  the  same  manner, 
though  scarcely  to  the  same  degree. 

Georgia,  last  in  geographical  order,  had  also  the  briefest 
history,  and  the  most  sparsely  settled  territory.  Twenty 
years  under  the  Trustees  who  projected  it,  failed  to  bring 
the  permanent  population  up  to  5,000  ;^  but  with  the  lapse 
to  the  Crown  in  1752  began  a  healthier  growth.  The  new 
administration  fostered  slavery,  and  Governor  Wright  found 
in  1760  less  than  6,000  whites  and  perhaps  half  as  many 
blacks;'*  in  1766  he  reported  near  10,000  whites  and  8,000 
blacks  ;5  and  in  1773  over  18,000  whites  and  15,000  blacks.^ 

At  this  rate  of  increase  the  total  in  1776  was  probably 


least  40,000  blacks.     Bancroft  (ii.,  390,  391)   says  in  1754  40,000  whites  and  full 
as  many  negroes. 

1  Description  of  S.  C,  in  Carroll's  Hist.  Coll.,  ii.,  478,  479.  There  was  5,500 
militia  (whites)  in  1756  (Gov.  Lyttleton,  in  Winsor's  Hist,  of  Amer.,  v.,  335), 
and  6,200  in  1758  (Gov.  Lyttleton,  in  Pres.  Ezra  Stiles'  MSS.).  Hewatt  esti- 
mates in  1765  near  40,000  whites  and  80-90,000  negroes  (Carroll's  Hist.  Coll., 
i.,503). 

2  Wells's  S.  C.  Register  for  1774,  quoted  in  Winsor's  Hist.,  v.,  335. 

3  Whites  about  2,700  and  blacks  about  1,700,  in  1752  (Jones's  Hist,  of  Ga.,  1.,  400) . 
^do.,  ii.,  73. 

SfZo..  i.,460. 
^do.,  ii.,522. 


29 

from    45,000  to  50,000/   or  double  the  number  of  seven 
82,548.    ^gj^j,g  before.     In  the  times  of  inva- 
sion Georgia  h'ke  her  neighbors  suf- 
fered  a   diminution    of  her  negroes,^ 

S  I  I  i  I  i  and  the  war  reduced  her  grand  total 
below  the  figures  of  1776;  but  she  rallied  by  1790  to  the 
much  higher  sum  of  82,548,  of  which  the  whites  made  near 
two-thirds.  In  one  respect,  however,  she  was  singularly 
misrepresented,  being  overestimated  in  the  Federal  Con- 
vention of  1787  at  nearly  half  as  much  again  as  her  real 
amount  of  population,  while  the  rest  of  the  colonies  were 
underestimated  considerably, — the  total  of  the  Convention's 
figures  falling  short  of  the  reality  by  more  than  half  a  million. 

A  summary  of  these  results  gives  us  a  reasonably  approxi- 
mate view  of  the  growth  of  population  in  the  whole  country 
for  the  period  before  1790. 

In  the  first  third  of  a  century,  or  by  1640,  when  Parlia- 
ment gained  the  ascendency  in  England,  British  America 
contained  a  little  over  25,000  whites, — 60  per  cent,  of  them 
in  New  England,  and  the  most  of  the  remainder  in  Virginia. 
At  the  Restoration  of  monarchy  in  1660,  the  total  was 
about  80,000,  the  greatest  gain  being  in  the  most  loyal 
divisions,  Virginia  and  Maryland,  which  now  comprehended 
one-half  the  whole.  At  the  next  epoch,  the  Protestant 
Revolution  of  1689,  Mr.  Bancroft  concludes^  that  our  num- 
bers were  not  much  beyond  200,000,  and  the  figures  I  have 
presented  give  about  206,000 ;  in  this  increase  one  large 
factor  was  due  to  the  Middle  Colonies,  which  now  for  the 
first  time  assumed  importance,  numbering  already  nearly 
half  as  many  as  New  England. 

A  round  half-million  appears  to  have  been  reached  about 
1721,  with  the  Middle  Colonies  showing  again  the  largest 
percentage  of  growth,  and  New  England  the  least.  A 
million  followed  in  twenty-two  years  more,  or  1743,  this 

1  Bancroft  estimates  (iv.,  181)  in  1775  about  17,000  whites  and  15,000  blacks. 

2  Jones's  Hist,  (ii.,  522)  queries  whether  in  1782  she  had  over  35,000  inhabitants. 
3i.,608. 


28 

The  next  complete  figures  are  those  of  Dr.  249,073. 

George   Milligan,    in    1763,    from  30,000   to  ^<^ 

40,000  whites  and  about  70,000  slaves.^     Ten  ^    ^ 

years  later  the  militia  were  about  13,000  (im- 
plying five  times   as    many  whites)  and   the 
negroes    about 
110,000,2  which 

makes  the  hio^h-  _  *^^ 

est  point  reached        |     l 

before  the  Revolution,  still  under  200,000.  One  result  of 
the  war  was  that,  whereas  for  generations  previous  the 
blacks  had  outnumbered  the  whites  so  largely,  the  whole- 
sale exodus  of  negroes  under  the  auspices  of  the  British 
reversed  this  proportion  of  the  races  in  the  census  of  1790, 
which  gave  140,178  whites  and  108,895  blacks.  North 
Carolina  and  Virginia  had  suffered  in  the  same  manner, 
though  scarcely  to  the  same  degree. 

Georgia,  last  in  geographical  order,  had  also  the  briefest 
history,  and  the  most  sparsely  settled  territory.  Twenty 
years  under  the  Trustees  who  projected  it,  failed  to  bring 
the  permanent  population  up  to  5,000  ;^  but  with  the  lapse 
to  the  Crown  in  1752  began  a  healthier  growth.  The  new 
administration  fostered  slavery,  and  Governor  Wright  found 
in  1760  less  than  6,000  whites  and  perhaps  half  as  many 
blacks  ;4  in  1766  he  reported  near  10,000  whites  and  8,000 
blacks  ;5  and  in  1773  over  18,000  whites  and  15,000  blacks.^ 

At  this  rate  of  increase  the  total  in  1776  was  probably 

least  40,000  blacks.  Bancroft  (ii.,  390,  391)  says  in  1754  40,000  whites  and  full 
as  many  negroes. 

1  Description  of  S.  C,  in  Carroll's  Hist.  Coll.,  ii.,  478,  479.  There  was  5,500 
militia  (whites)  in  1750  (Gov.  Lyttleton,  in  Winsor's  Hist,  of  Anier.,  v.,  335), 
and  6,200  in  1758  (Gov.  Lyttleton,  in  Pres.  Ezra  Stiles'  MSS.).  Hewatt  esti- 
mates in  1765  near  40,000  whites  and  80-90,000  negroes  (Carroll's  Hist.  Coll., 
i.,503). 

2  Wells's  S.  C.  Register  for  1774,  quoted  in  Winsor's  Hist.,  v.,  335. 

3  Whites  about  2,700  and  blacks  about  1,700,  in  1752  (Jones's  Hist,  of  Ga.,  i.,  460) . 
^do.,  ii.,73. 

s<Zo..  i.,460. 
6(?o.,  ii.,522. 


29 

from  45,000  to  50,000/  or  double  the  number  of  seven 
82,548^.  years  before.  In  the  times  of  inva- 
sion Georgia  h'ke  her  neighbors  suf- 
fered a  diminution  of  her  negroes,^ 
I  I  I  I  I  I  and  the  war  reduced  her  grand  total 
below  the  figures  of  1776 ;  but  she  rallied  by  1790  to  the 
much  higher  sum  of  82,548,  of  which  the  whites  made  near 
two-thirds.  In  one  respect,  however,  she  was  singularly 
misrepresented,  being  overestimated  in  the  Federal  Con- 
vention of  1787  at  nearly  half  as  much  again  as  her  real 
amount  of  population,  while  the  rest  of  the  colonies  were 
underestimated  considerably, — the  total  of  the  Convention's 
figures  falling  short  of  the  reality  by  more  than  half  a  million. 

A  summary  of  these  results  gives  us  a  reasonably  approxi- 
mate view  of  the  growth  of  population  in  the  whole  countiy 
for  the  period  before  1790. 

In  the  first  third  of  a  century,  or  by  1640,  when  Parlia- 
ment gained  the  ascendency  in  England,  British  America 
contained  a  little  over  25,000  whites, — 60  per  cent,  of  them 
in  New  England,  and  the  most  of  the  remainder  in  Virginia. 
At  the  Restoration  of  monarchy  in  1660,  the  total  was 
about  80,000,  the  greatest  gain  being  in  the  most  loyal 
divisions,  Virginia  and  Maryland,  which  now  comprehended 
one-half  the  whole.  At  the  next  epoch,  the  Protestant 
Revolution  of  1689,  Mr.  Bancroft  concludes^  that  our  num- 
bers were  not  much  beyond  200,000,  and  the  figures  I  have 
presented  give  about  206,000 ;  in  this  increase  one  large 
factor  was  due  to  the  Middle  Colonies,  which  now  for  the 
first  time  assumed  importance,  numbering  already  nearly 
half  as  many  as  New  England. 

A  round  half-million  appears  to  have  been  reached  about 
1721,  with  the  Middle  Colonies  showing  again  the  largest 
percentage  of  growth,  and  New  England  the  least.  A 
million  followed  in  twenty-two  years  more,  or  1743,  this 

1  Bancroft  estimates  (iv.,  181)  in  1775  about  17,000  whites  and  15,000  blacks. 

2  Jones's  Hist,  (ii.,  522)  queries  whether  in  1782  she  had  over  35,000  inhabitants. 
8i.,608. 


30 

figure  being  doubled  in  turn  twenty-four 
3'ears  later,  or  in  1767, — the  latter  redu- 
plication being  delayed  a  little,  doubt- 
less by  the  effect  of  intervening  wars. 

In  the  Congress  of  1774  the  colonists 
ventured  for  the  first  time  on  a  guess 
at  their  own  strength,  their  estimate 
being  a  little  over  three  millions  ;^  but 
the  true  number  cannot  have  been  much 
more  than  two  millions  and  a  half,  and 
this  in  turn  was  the  double  of  the  figure 
reached  about  twenty-three  years  before, 
which  period  is  the  usual  time  of  doubling 
shown  by  our  later  censuses  down  to  the 
date  of  the  Civil  War. 

These  results  differ  slightly  from  those 
approved  by  Mr.  Bancroft  in  his  last 
edition,  who  exceeds  my  estimates  from 


4,000,000. 


1750  to  1770^  by  amounts  varying  from  50,000  to  100,000, 
or  from  4  to  5  per  cent,  of  the  totals. 

With  the  limited  time  at  my  disposal,  I  refrain  from 
entermg  on  the  many  interesting  deductions  to  which  these 
statistics  open  the  way. 

1  John  Adams's  Works,  vii.,  302. 

2  Bancroft  (il.,  390)  quotes  Chalmers's  estimates  of  4:34,600  in  1714,  580,000  in 
1727,  1,4S5,634  in  1754;  I  should  assume  at  tliese  dates,  400,000,  600,000,  and 
1,360,000,  respectively.  For  himself  he  gives  1,260,000  in  1750, 1,425,000  in  1754, 
1,695,000  in  1760,  2,312,000  in  1770,  and  2,945,000  in  1780;  for  this  last  date,  E.  B. 
Elliott,  in  Walker's  Statistical  Atlas  of  U.  S.  (1874),  computes  the  total  as  in 
round  numbers  3,070,000.  My  own  figures  are,  for  1750,  1,207,000;  for  1760, 
1,610,000;  for  1770,  2,205,000;  for  1775,  2,580,000;  and  for  1780,  2,780,000.  The 
published  figures  of  the  census  of  1790  (3,929,214)  do  not  include  Vermont  or 
the  Territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio,  which  would  bring  the  total  above  4,000,000. 


^  ,      I.OAN  DEPT 


Syracuse,  N.  Y. 
Stoclcton,  Calif. 


M189386 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


U.C.BERKELEY  LIB 


CD^5lfll7 


; 


